Reboot: Because I Hate NoWin Scenarios
by macDhai
Summary: Itou Ryou doesn't wake up one morning. Kudoh Yohji does. And remembers everything.
1. Reboot

4/27/10, forgot to add, this is for AuroraExecution, because of "Choose" and is explained in the title. And if anyone else out there wants to run with this idea, please do so; I'd love to see how others interpret the story premise – R. macDhai

Reboot: Because I Hate No-Win Scenarios – a Weiss Kreuz story

Story Premise: Itou Ryou doesn't wake up one morning, Kudoh Yohji does. And remembers everything.

Part 1: Thoughts

Returning from the dead to find someone else had moved into your body was just creepy.

Having a second life, truly being another person, kind of liberating.

Having the other person in your head with all their baggage, back to the creepy part.

But it gives you a chance to look at who you were, what you fucked up, what you're going to fuck up by being alive again. It took awhile to sort out, redefine, redevelop, and restart being, integrating, rebooting a mind and body that hadn't been kind to itself.

Some things take two pieces to restart.

Aya was out shopping, giving him time enough to confirm what his research had already told him. The red head was still single, still in a certain line of work, and, from the photos, still as heart-wrenchingly beautiful.

"How could I ever have forgotten you?"


	2. Insurance

Guest appearance, points if you recognize from where, and no I don't own him either. What part of "fan fiction" didn't you understand? Don't think he'll be back, not really a crossover story, but depends on my mad muses….

Reboot: Because I Hate No-Win Scenarios – a Weiss Kreuz story

Part 2: Insurance

"Hey, Dr. Reid, over here." I wave to the slender young man from my seat beside the window. As he crosses the room, navigating between the tables and chairs of the cafeteria, it strikes me how much he resembles Aya at about that age. Oh, nothing in the coloring, just a bit in the way he carries himself, just a ghost of how I imagine Aya would have been if his life and his family's hadn't crossed the Takatoris.

"Mr. Kudoh," he greets me and we shake hands. "I'm a little confused as to why you requested this meeting."

"Insurance," I say, pushing the file I've been doodling on across the table before he's even sat down.

"Kritiker," he says softly and his eyebrows lift in two lovely arches as he looks back at me. The Aya who wasn't might have given me such a look. Or Omi, when he was younger. I resist the urge to tousle his hair, as I would have with the chibi. I wondered if it would be as soft as it looked, shame it was so painfully short.

"Read it," I tell him. "It's been cleared. The only one who'll be compromised is me."

This time the look he gives me is all himself, the hunter awake and concerned behind those beautiful eyes. Without a word he starts on the file. He reads very quickly.

I look out the window again, over the round mounds of decorative yew and the acres of emerald grass. I idly wish for a cigarette, playing instead with a keychain I'm braiding, ignoring the patch I wear under my shirt.

He closed the file and said conversationally, "You have a pardon from the Emperor of Japan. I'd never seen one before."

And, "Why did you show me this?"

"I'm trying to go back to . . . work." I shrugged. "If I do, no problems. If not –"

"Thus, insurance."

I nodded.

"Why me?"

"You're the youngest on your team, about the age I was then. No ill wishes on your leaders, but barring stupid accidents you'll be around the longest to keep an eye out for me."

I stood up and my old demon mischief couldn't resist giving a little poke to his professional façade. Closing the short distance between us, I kissed him lightly on the forehead. "Besides," I whispered, "you remind me of someone I love."

His eyes were very wide, but he didn't make any move to stop me as I walked away.


	3. Return

**Reboot: Because I Hate No-Win Scenarios** – a Weiss Kreuz story by Rillan macDhai

In case it isn't obvious, this chapter and the last one are flashbacks

Part 3: Return

After I'd sorted myself out, I knew there were other lives needing sorted out as well. One in particular, and I knew who I needed to talk to, someone who could help me find it. And someone who might be able to offer me the leash I was discovering I was in need of, before the dark side of Balinese fully woke up again.

"Mr. Takatori, there's a Mr. Itou Ryou here to see you."

Silence, as his private secretary listened to his reply.

"Yes, sir. Itou Ryou. About –" she looked at her notes and continued, sounding doubtful. "About unfinished business regarding a certain katana and a Balinese cat?"

Longer silence. The man in question smiled at her over his glasses, scratching absently at the nicotine patch he was wearing under his shirt.

"Antiques," she said brightly. Then, "Yes, I'll send him right in."

"Thank you," he told her, already on his feet. "Have a wonderful day." And he slipped a handful of carnations into the empty vase on her desk.

Takatori Mamoru had grown from a cute teenager into a handsome man. He stood up to greet me, but, mindful of our old occupation and the suspicions he must be having, I didn't attempt to get any closer. "Mr. Itou?" he asked.

I looked out the window at Tokyo. This was it; I was burning bridges again. I just hoped a new one might be built. "Not exactly," I said. I tilted my head and slid my glasses down my nose, looking at him over the tops. "But you knew that from the message I sent. You look good, Omi."

"Yohji? Yohji-kun?" His eyes lit up with amazement and delight and then he vaulted his desk, all trace of the adult businessman forgotten as he wrapped me in a rib-creaking embrace. Into my chest, he said, "I'd hoped it was you, but we'd waited so long, I thought you might have just remembered enough to come looking for answers."

I rested my head against his for a moment. "I have come looking for answers, Omi, but it's because I'm back." I sighed. "I remembered everything. And I need to know, what happened while I was gone?"

He pushed back and looked up at me, "Where should I start?"

I bit back 'where's Aya?', and instead asked, "Are you still in the business?"

"The room's secure, Yohji-kun. It's safe to talk." He walked over to the sideboard and poured himself a drink. "Want anything?" he asked.

"Rum and Coke, easy on the rum. Being married slowed me down on that a lot."

He brought our drinks over to a conversation area, setting them on the low table there and dropping bonelessly into one of the chairs. I sat down a little more cautiously, sinking into the deep padding. It was a comfortable chair.

"I did a couple of other things for a bit, but I run Kritiker now that I finished university," Omi said.

"Good. Can I have my old job back?"

His eyes widened. "Why would you --?

"I'll explain that in detail in a bit."

"You haven't split with --?"

"No." I took a sip of my drink. "Not yet, anyway. She's a good woman and I want to hurt her as little as possible. But I really can say I'm not the man she married."

"I'm sorry, Yohji."

"Don't be! I've had ten years of normal and it was good. But it isn't who I am, Omi. It let me grow up, a bit, and I'm glad for that, but I've been back for a while. I made myself wait to see if I might just fade away again before I came here. But I didn't, so I've been sorting things out. There are things that have healed, but there are also things that never will. You've seen my file, hell, you wrote some of it. I need a leash, Omi. I need Kritiker or someplace like it. I've been awake again long enough it's becoming painful. The Balinese wants to hunt. It's this or a cage."

Omi understood, but he was still sad about it. "Aya'd hoped you'd never have to kill again."

That maybe-memory I'd first remembered when I woke up still hurt. If only I could have held on . . .

"Aya made the best choice he could for me, but it was from Aya's perspective. And he didn't think I'd be coming back." I held the rum and Coke up to the light, watching the way the alcohol added light, while the soda added movement.

"You'll need a physical," Omi said. "And a psych evaluation."

I looked at him over my glasses again. "I know. And retraining, a lot of things have changed in ten years. And," I made a face, the lazy in my nature getting the better of me for a moment, "lots of exercise to get back in shape again."

Omi laughed and, if I closed my eyes, just for a moment, I was home again.


	4. Images

Reboot 4 Something of an experiment. Let me know what you think

Images

"I like your hair this way," she said into my ear.

I pulled her closer, sliding my hands down the warm length of her back. "And I like you this way."

"Again? So soon?" she asked, smiling at me.

Laughter, hers and mine, entwined in the night.

That damned obstacle course.

How good it had felt to run it, full out, live ammo, in all my new mission gear and not be wheezing like an asthmatic at the end. Or an ex-smoker.

I poked at the nicotine patch. Amazing little thing . . .

My son and hers on his first day of school, Itou Ran in his first school uniform.

His mother, tight in the curve of my arm, is trying to be brave about letting him go out into the world.

Me too.

Ken just released from prison, taller, tanned, and amazed to see me. "You look good, Yohji, you look like . . .

"Myself? Thanks. It's good to be back. It's good to have you back."

Dissolve to happy toasts and laughter in Omi's office as we talked about the past and the future.

Rain.

What is it about rain and missions? Maybe the angels weeping . . .

. . . or washing away another stained soul.

In the rain, recoiling my wires, I felt almost whole.

One piece still missing.

Asuka and Ran at the airport with Omi there as well, playing Mamoru, promising me he'd protect them while I was gone.

Ken wishing me luck, giving me a brother's hug as my flight is called.

Ran's hugs and Asuka's parting kiss still warmed me as the jet thundered into the sky.

Aya, in my dreams, is dancing death with his katana like Shiva dancing the end of the world. _Or it's rebuilding._ Waking, I see his hair mimicked in clouds alight of a rising sun


	5. Confrontation & Dream

**Reboot:** Because I Hate No-Win Scenarios – a Weiss Kreuz story

By Rillan macDhai

Thanks for the reviews! I love you all! And please, if anyone wants to nitpick grammar and style, please do so.

To tbennet: I figured when it was time for names there were two that just surfaced. Actually, just one, but Asuka wouldn't let him name the boy Aya. When she finally suggested Ran, it just felt right to Ryou. Yohji finds it just a little disturbing, but more so that he once again found a woman who looks like Asuka (and has the same name, I think I got that part right? No one's jumped on me about it yet…) (oh and can anyone tell me if Ryou = Ryu? Or is it two different names?)

Angst, lots of. This has turned very dark, I'm not sure if I should move it to M or not, it's definitely adult themes, but no gore or sex. Well, it's implied, but…

Hope you'll forgive me, but our sexy boys really are damaged goods and Yohji, much as I love him, is probably the most damaged. And I've watched too much Criminal Intent. And Jason Bourne, which I think is the greatest depiction of a spy/assassin I've yet seen. The anti-James Bond. Tip of the hat to the late John D. MacDonald and his series character Travis McGee for the idea of retirement in installments…. Some spy novel terminology crept in as well, but it seems appropriate for Weiss.

The idea of the dream I've been referring to and paraphrase some of during the end conversation is from AuroraExecution's story "Choose" and is used with her permission.

Part 5: Confrontation and Dream

This would be so much easier if I could just call him and say, "Hi Aya, it's Yohji, I need to come over and talk." But it's Aya…

Dealing with Aya is never easy.

And all I can think is at best he'd think it was Schuldig messing with him. If the telepath is still even alive . . .

I did call Omi. And Asuka. She knows I did/do/still love her. Such an amazing woman . . .

Where did Aya go?

He got out of my sight for just a . . .

He saw me, heard me, felt me, something. I know it.

All my training screams, _walk away now, you can try again later_. But the whole point of this is to meet with him, so why not now?

I'm just glad he isn't a sniper.

And I'm very glad my association with Kritiker allowed me to get my mission clothes into the county.

I'd debated not bringing them and then, when I did, not wearing them. Kevlar and chainmail, sort of, something a little more exotic, but basically kevlar to stop or slow the bullets and chainmail to stop the blades. In theory. It stops wire from biting as well. It's heavy and it's hot and I was damn glad I was wearing it.

So I sat there and waited. And wished I had a cigarette.

And thought about the layout of the parking garage I was in. If I were Aya . . .

I'd still be able to sneak up on myself.

"Who the hell are you?" Gods, there was a world of hostility and anger in that voice. But it was him, oh so unmistakably Aya. Was his team with him? Maybe not, maybe so. I wasn't there to fight and they'd have to meet me eventually . . . if they were all as quick as him, I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up.

Now to convince Aya. I turned toward his voice. And heard his breath catch when he saw me.

I felt the same way. The teenager had matured, unmistakably a man now, filled out just a little, but still lean and lovely and deadly as the katana he held bared and pointing at me. And his hair was even longer. And still that heart-stopping, impossible red.

His face went from shocked to a very short, but very real instant of hope and desire. And then he just got mad.

"Who the hell came up with this idea?" He was very clearly going to shake or maybe cut, the name of the instigator out of me.

"I did." I shrugged. "I never was big on the planning end of things."

He stopped. Just like that.

"Yohji?" He was white to the lips. He clearly hadn't expected this apparition to sound like me as well.

Before he slipped in angry mode again, or homicidal rage, I said, "Call Omi. I know you have his number. Call him." Because I knew he'd believe the chibi before he believed me. Because you don't have the ghost of the man you were in love with just walk back into your life. Not if you're Aya. Not if you've ever been Weiss.

It was a measure of how shocked he was that he did make the call.

He was on the phone a long time, mostly listening.

"Why are you here?"

"Because I needed to see you."

"Fine. You've seen me. Now go home, Itou, you've got a wife and son."

I'd expected it. He was so good at shutting off any faint possibility of happiness for himself. For either of us.

"Calling me that name won't make me go away, Aya. I already tried that."

He gave me one of his Looks.

"This wasn't a spur of the moment thing." I Looked back at him over my glasses, being a father had helped me learn that trick. "I've been back almost a year and half now. I waited, once I woke up, wondering if, if I went to sleep that Ryou would wake up again and I'd be gone. But it didn't happen. And I can't sit around waiting for it to happen just to fit everyone else's idea of how my life should be."

He looked shocked at that, as though I'd slapped him.

"I love Asuka, sometimes I think she's my second chance to make things right with her spirit. And I love Ran and I'm glad I can give him the childhood none of us had." I could see Aya knotting himself up and really didn't have a clue how I was going to get through it, but I knew I couldn't stop.

"But before them, I – I loved you, Aya. As madly and deeply and self-destructively as I'd loved the first Asuka. And so, I had to see you again, because with you I might have a chance to make things right in this lifetime."

"Kudoh, I'm just an assassin. I don't have anything to offer you."

"You said something very much like that to me once before. It wasn't true then. I don't believe its true now."

I walked a little closer. "I know you have more capacity for caring than anyone else I've ever met. And I know how you wall yourself off from everything because caring hurts. And how damn protective you are of anyone you love, no matter how badly you'll get hurt protecting them. If you hadn't loved me you'd have never let me go."

I saw the look in those violet eyes. Caught. Guilty.

"You made a choice for me, because I couldn't tell you the choice I'd made, because it was the choice you thought you'd make for yourself, if you could."

"We'd talked about it," he said.

"Aya! Damnit! We were three angsty Goth boys and one chibi, all convinced we'd never see twenty-five and none of us really caring if we did. Until I started taking care of you and you," I dropped my head, knowing my voice was catching. "And you started taking care of me. It was all very angsty and dramatic and we didn't have a clue."

Over the top of my glasses, I saw him look away, just the faintest shadow of a smile on his face. "You were more of a yuppie clubber," he muttered, and, not quite a protest, "and I was only ever Goth for missions."

I chuckled. I couldn't help it.

He looked at me with a terrible mixture of pain and sorrow, and maybe still love, in those violet eyes, "Yohji, I wanted you free of this."

"And I was, but I wasn't me either, except in pieces of my dreams. It was a ten-year vacation from myself." I shrugged; glad I at least had him using my name. "I'm willing to take my retirement in installments, but if I'm going to do it, I'd rather it was with you."

I walked still closer and the tip of his katana came up reflexively. I stopped just one good lunge length away. This was the part he really wasn't going to want to hear.

"Do you remember what was in my file?" I asked.

Now his eyes changed, confusion coming into them.

"Profiling was something new back then. I kind of wish Kritiker had had a psychoanalyst on the staff… it might have saved us all a lot of grief." I smiled, "Though I can see you leaning against a wall, arms crossed and glaring at the doc for the whole session."

"Where are you going with this, Kudoh?"

Damn. Backslide.

I looked at the floor, not wanting to get caught in those eyes while I told him this. "Did you ever wonder why I used my wires, Aya? Strangling people is such a very personal way of killing; close up you can feel the life drain away under your fingertips, watch the light go out of their eyes, feel the last twitches as the soul comes loose from the body."

I shivered, remembering and Aya was deathly silent. "And every time I killed, I saw their faces, the ones who killed Asuka. And then, after a while, it became more about killing them, again and again, and less about Asuka. And less about Asuka than how I felt after they were dead." I fidgeted with my keychain, giving my hands something to do, though I could feel how Aya stiffened when I pulled it out of my pocket. I really wanted a smoke at that moment.

"Without Weiss giving me direction, without you to keep me balanced, there was nothing left but the need to kill them. You wondered why I hated Kudoh Kohji so much, why I wanted to forget, why I was drinking and drugging myself into a stupor… well, it took ten years of not being and another year of sorting things out and finally admitting them to myself. I kill people because I need to, Aya. And I'm not going to stop, now that I'm alive again. I can't remain Itou Ryou. The Balinese isn't going back in _that_ cage."

I looked back up; studying him, with his purple eyes wide and my cross at his neck, knowing these would be the deciding moments. Either he would accept me, warts and all, as it were, and I would have my home and my love and what was left of my tarnished soul back or he wouldn't. Then it would depend on whether he would let me walk away or try to kill me.

That, I had to prevent at all costs, for if he killed me, I knew the last of Aya, of the tarnished knight that was Ran Fujiyama, would shatter utterly and there would only be the assassin behind empty violet eyes, and he wouldn't live long either. I knew that, as certain as I knew without Kritiker or this group Aya was with now, or something similar, I would still kill the dark beasts, but there would be no more line between me and them.

"I want to come in, Aya. I want to, need to, be near you. Be part of your group. Even if I don't actually work with you, just knowing you're alive gives me something to live for. And having someone to kill, someone I'm allowed to kill, that will keep me on this side of becoming a monster, something Weiss hunted. Maybe."

"And if not?" His question was a whisper, a breath on the air.

"Then I walk away, again." I truly hadn't meant to add the 'again', it had just slipped out. "I won't be in the wind, Omi's willing to take me back. He's the one who made sure I was ready to do this again. But without you, it's not Weiss and it's not home. But if it fails, at least I'll be as far away from you as I can, Aya, so that when I kill outside a mission, it won't be you they send hunting me."

I stood there, balancing, wondering, if he decided to try to put me out what he might think of as my suffering right then, would I be fast enough? He'd always scared the hell out of me. And he had ten more years of practice.

But I also remembered the only way I'd ever gotten anywhere with Aya was to push him, to press in despite the glares and the very real threat of death, and tell him how I felt. To show him how I felt, when words didn't work.

I was afraid of that blade. I couldn't afford to be afraid of Aya.

I walked closer. _Ignore the sword, Yohji. Watch his eyes. +_

I remembered the dream I'd had, the very first thing I'd remembered. Standing close like this, so close that if he chooses to strike, I will have to be as fast or faster, or both of us will die. "I choose this life, Aya. I choose you. This time, I won't let go."

His eyes widened and I knew it hadn't just been a dream. "It is you," he said as though he were only certain of it now, his voice dazed. "You came back."

"I told you I didn't want to let go." I offered him my hand and this time when he tried to take it, I pulled him to me. Stared into those beautiful eyes. Found him staring back, as thought I were a dream who might vanish at any moment

"Promise," he whispered. His arms crept around me gently as thought he were holding light and air

"I will. I do. Yours, to the end of our days and beyond."

And then he tightened his arms around me and his kiss was real and hot and full of life and it anchored me and made me whole at last. And perhaps made him whole as well.

And my interrupted life restarted.

This was for AuroraExecution, because of "Choose"; everything after the + behind "watch his eyes" is borrowed directly from her story, just switched around to Yohji's pov. I hope she likes how I've ended it. And I hope you liked it too and aren't too mad at me for implying Yohji's a sociopath.

Whatever he is, he belongs with Aya. That's what I remember from the series and from watching Gluhen, in Japanese with no subtitles, not knowing what was being said, just knowing those two belonged together and being so offended by how it ended. And when I found AE's story, it triggered all that for me again. So, this was my Kobiashi Maru for Weiss, because, like Captain Kirk, I hate no-win scenarios and I can reprogram the computer, if only for fanfiction – Rillan macDhai


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